In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a very least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth of the nation's territory. Getting resisted while in hundreds of years the chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell into within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identity which usually, in specific, permitted them to protect a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Indeed, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their historical past, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result beginning the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken, the Uyghurs used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The arrival of Islam was a great change since it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features going out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek roots of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only nine million inhabitants - a trifle for this huge region. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well-known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular law allows them a few rights in a country exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, appears very illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with locations identified as sensitive, clearly motivated the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the higher responsibility work opportunities.
In reaction to this true will to assimilate the Uyghur people into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.
Saying more flexibility, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place Xinjiang.
The situations of September 11, 2001, were the perfect occasion for the Chinese government to justify true reprisals: they declared the "Uyghur freedom fighters" as dangerous terrorists linked to Al Quaida because of their Muslim origins and their proximity with Pakistan and Afghanistan... However, the terrible repression which followed did not calm down the anger. The Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their culture , although they become a minority on their own territory.
For further information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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